Opto-Isolator

Opto-Isolator ,
Co-workers & Funding
Contents © 2010 Golan Levin and Collaborators.
http://www.flong.com/projects/optoisolator/
Mnemosyne
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Documents
  • levin decode
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Description
Opto-Isolator (2007: Golan Levin with Greg Baltus) inverts the condition of spectatorship by exploring the questions: "What if artworks could know how we were looking at them? And, given this knowledge, how might they respond to us?" The sculpture presents a solitary mechatronic blinking eye, at human scale, which responds to the gaze of visitors with a variety of psychosocial eye-contact behaviors that are at once familiar and unnerving. Among other forms of feedback, Opto-Isolator looks its viewer directly in the eye; appears to intently study its viewer's face; looks away coyly if it is stared at for too long; and blinks precisely one second after its visitor blinks.
Keywords
  • aesthetics
    • installation-based
  • genres
    • installations
      • interactive installations
  • subjects
    • Technology and Innovation
      • ambient intelligence
Technology & Material
Installation Requirements / Space
Mechatronic design and fabrication by Greg Baltus of Standard Robot Company, Pittsburgh. Opto-Isolator was developed with support from the Creative Capital Foundation, from the Berkman Faculty Development Fund at Carnegie Mellon University, from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts fellowship award program, and from an anonymous Trustee of Carnegie Mellon University. Additional thanks to Frank Broz, Fran Flaherty and Dave Tolliver for their advice and assistance in realizing this project, and to Marius Watz, Grisha Coleman, Alice Lodi and Juliacks for their help in documenting it. Photographs by John Berens; video by David Plakke and Golan Levin.
Exhibitions & Events
Decode: Digital Design Sensations
Bibliography
4 publications